MWF, 6:16 a.m., Dance Studio. Four of us, each waving the flag* for a particular life decade: Maria, the 40s, Kara, the 30s, Liz, the 20s; me . . . well, you can probably trust your powers of deduction.
What I love about all this is not the hour at which it begins. At this time of year, it’s black as ink when I shuffle tentatively across the entry deck, often tripping partway down the front steps, to make my way up the path and through the bushes to the side door of the PAC. Inside, in the space just off-stage, an EXIT light casts the fall play props huddled there in underwater green. Two more doors and I’m blinking in the bright halogen light of the studio. My friends are already there, yawning, stretching, lying prone in one last moment of repose before the work-play begins.
What I love is the easy collegiality, the idea that we are choosing to start three of our weekdays together, that we feel sufficiently responsible to the group to resist (mostly) hitting the snooze button on our alarm clocks and, instead haul ourselves out and up to the studio. It’s a kind of sustenance, a touchstone for later in the day as our paths cross during what is sometimes known as “school.”
I love the drop-to-the-floor laughs when we forget steps, or nearly crash into each other, correct ourselves, and eventually get straight with the music. “There’s the downbeat! There!”
I love the fact that, some days, other younger women join us–the varsity volleyball girls. They spring like gazelles, turn on a dime, their long hair flying out in brown, blond, red banners. They inspire us teachers to push a little harder, sweat a little more. Two are the daughters of an advisee from my first three years at Thacher, during the time when my being here was strictly experimental, a whim of my early twenties that has somehow lasted decades. For many reasons, it’s nearly impossible for me to believe that those two, their friends, mine, and I are sharing the studio floor, moving to remixes–and to some songs whose lyrics are just the other side of shocking to me. I power through the words I’d rather not think too much about. Sometimes, the lines become fodder for English class discussion later in the day. (Do you ever feel like a plastic bag? and Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are shooting stars? and If you didn’t know then, well, baby, now you know now.)
Through the huge north windows, we see the clouds creeping up into the canyons, sometimes shrouding completely the camphor tree right there. I love watching this silent advance and, soon enough, the light filtering gradually from the east, gently turning back the fog. It’s a sign of the last of summer and real fall coming on–well, real as fall ever is in this valley of perpetual wonderment to me.
Our hour concluded, the morning has fully arrived–and it’s on to the next good thing of the day: English 1, Room C–a place for the stretch and strengthening of yet other muscles.
Ready. Let’s move!
*”wave the [American] flag” is one lyric-snippet from Beyonce’s collaboration with First Lady Michelle Obama to put some dance into the latter Let’s Move! initiative. We look almost this good.
I love this entry of yours because you capture several feelings that were so strongly a part of my life at Thacher: the very busy, full days, both energizing and exhausting, the feeling of awe for the beautiful natural surroundings, and the inspiration I felt when playing/working together with friends/classmates on many projects, be it a dance performance, a soccer game, or a study session. A sense of responsibility and commitment to a group often motivated me to achieve far more than I might have on my own. Looking back on it all, I sometimes can’t fathom how I was able to pack so much into each day and still have energy for the next day, and the next. But then I also think that, although the Thacher lifestyle asks each member to give so much of him/herself every day, it has a way of paying that investment back with interest, rejuvenating the spirit and leaving one far richer than before. I miss that strong sense of community and the very full, wholesome, intellectually stimulating life I had at Thacher.